Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the Sabertooth Tiger (Denis Leary), and Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) get stuck on a giant ice cube in "Ice Age: Continental Drift." Our gang of misfits runs into Pirate Captain Gutt (voiced by Peter Dinklage) on board the iceberg. This is followed by laughs, some slapstick and a few musical numbers. There's nothing in any way really awful about "Ice Age: Continental Drift" in 3D, just as there's no particular reason to recommend it. These guys just want to get off this iceberg and go home. As family offerings go, it's perfectly mediocre. This fourth …
Andrew Garfield takes over from Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, a nerdy kid who gets bitten by a radioactive arachnid in "The Amazing Spider-Man." The film is somewhat of a reboot about the origins of Spider-Man. Parker gets bullied in school, meets a pretty girl, gets spidey powers. The family falls victim to street thugs; he becomes a superhero. It's pretty much the same storyline, just a bit grittier than the one 10 years ago. This one has more swagger, more angst and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, the new spidey love interest. This is not a total carbon copy of the original but it's basically …
One way to beat the heat is to go to the movies. A little boy gets a cuddly teddy bear for Christmas and, after making a wish, the bear begins to talk. Twenty years later, Johnny (Mark Wahlberg) and his teddy bear (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) live together as roomies who smoke pot, watch cartoons and avoid growing up in "Ted." John's longtime girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis), waits patiently for a proposal but something has to be done about his foul-mouthed furry sidekick. John seems genuinely torn between them, making two humans and one bear a pretty convincing dramatic triangle. The storyline …
Honest Abe wants to stop an army of vampires from taking over the United States in the campy, but action-packed film "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." Lincoln, played by newcomer Benjamin Walker, swears revenge after seeing his mother killed by a vamp. Time goes by, and he finally learns how to kill the blood suckers, triggering a Civil War between mankind and vampires. It's an absolutely ridiculous premise but plays its subject and humor with a straight face and a surprising amount of historical accuracy ... if you ignore the whole vampire thing. This is not a movie that makes fun of its …
Boy meets girl, they rock each other's world, and it's all done to the tune of the 1980s L.A. rock scene in … "Rock of Ages." This rags-to-riches rock 'n' roll musical is set mostly in a music club on Sunset Strip. A lot of the entertainment, with some energetic musical numbers, includes several big names (Tom Cruise, Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin.) The two leads are Diego Boneta, as a bartender, and Julianne Hough, as a naive kid just off the bus from the Midwest. They prove that they too can sing covers of '80s rock classics. Basically the film is a set of songs linked together by a very …
A crew sets out to find the origins of man on a planet far, far away and finds thrills, frights and mammoth landscapes for the audience in "Prometheus." Director Ridley Scott, of the first "Alien" movie and "Blade Runner," put together a great thriller here. Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) plays an archaeologist who, along with her boyfriend, is sent to find what some believe are the origins of humans on a faraway planet. Their mission is overseen by shady corporate big wigs Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron, with most of the corporate experiments being conducted by scene…
Kristen Stewart is Snow White, a warrior princess who launches a battle to reclaim her kingdom from Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) in "Snow White and the Huntsman." As in the fairy tale, the queen locks Snow White in a tower prison while plunging the realm into chaos after the computer-generated mirror tells her she is no longer the fairest of them all. The queen then sends out studly huntsman Eric (Chris Hemsworth) to capture Snow White...But he soon declines his mission, opting to protect the princess — and face the queen's wrath. The film is not altogether bad. Its visual fireworks help …
It's been a decade since the Men in Black last defended the galaxy from bad guys. The world has certainly moved on, but the MIB team has not because it's business as usual in Men in Black 3. Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) continue their exploits, this time with Smith going back in time, to 1969, where he teams up with a younger agent K, played by Josh Brolin, to save the future version of his partner and, of course, the world. The rest of the film is really all about saving Agent K, saving the world from evil aliens and learning a little bit about the back story of each of…
From the guy who brought us Ali G and Borat comes a new character named General Aladeen -- a ruthless dictator from a fictional country in North Africa who is part buffoon, horn dog and ruthless bloodthirsty ruler in "The Dictator." Through a ridiculous set of circumstances, that I will spare you the details because they are so contrived, Aladeen ends up in New York while his even sillier double is in charge of his country. There are plenty of cameo appearances from big stars to keep things interesting. As for the element of political satire we get a pretty heavy-handed lecture that borders …
The summer movie season starts early, and this could be the biggest movie of the year. It is one of the most entertaining comic book blockbusters ever made: Marvel's The Avengers. You’ve met most of these characters before. Iron Man is Robert Downey Jr. Captain America is Chris Evans. Thor is Chris Hemsworth. The Hulk is Mark Ruffalo. Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury assembles the team to stop a diabolical bad guy who, you guessed it, wants to rule the world. But they spend nearly as much time battling one another as they do battling evil. What's great about this film is the sense of humor it …
A below-average pirate captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) seeks to win the elusive Pirate of the Year award but faces some strong competition in The Pirates! Band of Misfits. From the folks who brought us Wallace and Gromit, the story is feather-light but strong enough to introduce the characters and establish their conflicts, which are pretty predictable. It's more of a comedy than an adventure, appealing to both children and adults. Such a film should be a crowd pleaser at the box office. Audiences love pirate movies. Toss in some quirky characters, like a twisted Queen Victoria and Charles …
Zac Efron plays Logan, a soldier on his third tour in Afghanistan who comes across a picture of a woman and is inspired to search for her stateside, in The Lucky One. His search lands him at a kennel in Louisiana owned by Beth (Taylor Schilling) and her grandmother, Ellie (Blythe Danner). He gets a job there and settles in, still not telling anyone his real reason for being there. As you might imagine, sparks start to fly. The Lucky One is a Nicholas Sparks movie. He's good at this kind of thing, writing books that turn into such movies as Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe and The …
The kids are back, rediscovering their youth from their 30s, in American Reunion. This is the fourth installment of the American Pie franchise, featuring pastry lover Jim (Jason Biggs), nice guy Oz (Chris Klein) and party animal Stifler (Seann William Scott). Each character is dealing with a midlife crisis or relationship problem that builds up to a funny comedic payoff. The supporting cast, including Atlanta native Alyson Hannigan, helps this film bring humor to sexless marriages, rehashed high school flings and dead-end careers—or, as I like to say, comic gold. This may be the best film in …
It's more than just a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Sure, the evil queen banishes her stepdaughter to the woods to avoid the attention of Prince Charming, but don't expect the same outcome in Mirror Mirror. Julia Roberts is well-suited to play the evil queen. Lily Collins plays Snow White, and Armie Hammer is the prince. A great supporting cast makes this a film for young and old to enjoy. Adopted by a group of rebellious but kind dwarves, Snow White transforms into a brave young woman, determined to save her country from the queen. The movie is fun to watch. The filmmakers have …
It's one of the most anticipated movies in some time. It has all the elements of a big hit: teen romance, violence and action. Mix in some rising young stars and you have The Hunger Games. Jennifer Lawrence isn't a household name, but she will be. Known to this point for her critically acclaimed role in Winter's Bone, Lawrence plays Katniss, one of two people from her district who must play a nationally televised game in which there can be just one winner—the last one alive. With knives, swords, bows, arrows and other weapons, the massacre begins. This futurist tale takes place in the country…
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum play bumbling cops Schmidt and Jenko, who go undercover and back to high school in 21 Jump Street. The film is a spinoff of the Fox TV show of the late ’80s and early ’90s, which helped launch the career of Johnny Depp but otherwise was kind of a throwaway show. This rewrite is a pleasant surprise. Schmidt and Jenko, under the supervision of their police captain (played by Ice Cube), investigate a new illegal drug at the local high school. They are obviously too old to be in high school, and it doesn't matter. It's all part of the gag. The premise is …
Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch plays a Civil War veteran transported to Mars for all sorts of interplanetary fighting in John Carter. Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the original story 100 years ago. Now it's a 3-D epic from the folks who brought us WALL-E. John Carter is a small man compared with the 12-foot-tall, four-armed creatures around him, but he does have his own superpowers on Mars. If you haven't read the book, there is a lot to keep track of: Carter wants to go home. An alien species wants him to marry the queen. Another alien is smitten with him. Another group wants…
It’s a deforestation fable about an industrialized society’s effects on the environment. And it’s a family film: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. Zac Efron is the voice of Ted, a 12-year-old living in a not-so-environmentally friendly world. He wants to get his sweetheart, Audrey (Taylor Swift), a real tree to win her over. Ted sets out for the one person, or thing, that will help him out: an orange, mustachioed environmentalist known as the Lorax, an optimistic guardian of the forest who “speaks for the trees” and sounds suspiciously like Danny DeVito. The supporting cast of voice actors counters the …
Active-duty Navy SEALs, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, take on bad guys in one of the most realistic action war movies ever, Act of Valor. The film aims to put the audience "in the boots" of the SEALs. Even many of the bullets were live rounds. Without a real plot, though, the film relies on first-person narration to explain what’s going on for most of the 90 minutes: • Drug dealers, bang. • Terrorists, bang. • People shooting at SEALs, bang. Anyone who gets in their way is DOA. All you need to know is that the SEALs are the good guys, and they are out to get the …
Chris Pine and Tom Hardy play CIA operatives and best friends who discover they are after the same girl, Reese Witherspoon, in This Means War. Pine plays FDR, and Tom Hardy is Tuck in a movie that is more of a bromance than anything else. The two buddies become quick enemies as they fight for the heart of Lauren Scott (Witherspoon). Using all the latest spy equipment, each does whatever he can to sabotage the other's chances. That, in a nutshell, is the movie, which could self-destruct in three, two. … Witherspoon, an Oscar winner, doesn't do much for her career in this film. It’s a romantic …
